Vol. 3 Chapters 1 and 2
Chapter 1 KEY EVENTS:- 1. Opens with Victor trying to put off creating the female monster. 2. Victor's father talks to him about marrying Elizabeth. 3. Victor expresses a wish to visit England, his Father agrees but between him and Elizabeth they decide that Clerval should join Victor in 4. The wedding was set for as soon as he returned home. 5. They soon reach London. "Alas! to me the idea of an immediate union with my Elizabeth was one of horror and dismay." p157 Shelley places the reasoning behind this remark in following comments about the creature and his "solemn promise", but the fact that there is no justification in the same sentence allows multiple conclusions to be drawn about Victor's relationship with Elizabeth. For example the creature is the first thing that comes to mind when he is offered a wedding to the supposed love of his life. This suggests that the creature is portrayed by Shelley in a feminine light, acting as a third person in a form of love triangle because he has become more important than Elizabeth. Shelley includes "immediate union" to highlight the childish nature of Victor because "immediate" suggests present action that he can no longer put off. This presents him as childish because the "horror" of an adult convention happening induces fear. This is developed later in the phrase through "my Elizabeth" which objectifies her like a child with a toy. The reader is given hints by Shelley that the "dismay caused by the wedding is based on more than just the creature's instructions. For example, a marriage would give Elizabeth a say in the domestic sphere of his life, which is presented as something Victor dislikes already because the result of a "concert with Elizabeth" and his father only "interfered" with his solitude. Chapter 2 KEY EVENTS:- 1. In London Victor collects the instruments needed to make the new creation. 2. Both men leave London, stay in Winsor for a few days and then on to Oxford. 3. After spending some time in Oxford, both go on Edinburgh and then Victor tells Clerval that he wants to take a tour of Scotland alone. 4. Victor reaches a remote island in the Orkneys and hires a hut. 5. He starts making the female creature but states "it became everyday more horrible and irksome to me." Significant quotations:- "But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul;" p165 This quote is significant because it connects to the passage of a violent storm that reduces an Oak tree to a "blasted stump" in Chapter two. As a fifteen year old in the original passage Shelley presents Victor as filled with "delight" at the marvel of electricity and nature. In contrast as an adult at the beginning of Volume three Victor becomes the tree, Shelley uses this metaphor to present a change of expectations in relation to what scientific endeavour can produce. She achieves this through altering Victor's view about the storm, in volume one Shelley suggests that Frankenstein is more interested in gaining knowledge of electricity rather than the power of nature. This is highlighted in "Before this I was not acquainted with the...laws of electricity" following the storm passage, because "laws of electricity" suggests that Victor is portrayed as thinking of the storm as an experiment to observe. By Volume three Shelley his view as being based around the power and value of nature in its own right, referring to the scene as "sublime" which was not included by Shelley at the time of the storm. Most importantly Shelley compares Victor through the metaphor to "something utterly destroyed". This is significant because it implies that Victor has been "destroyed" through his scientific pursuit emphasising her message that scientific development is not always an advantage for humanity. "I looked towards its completion with a tremulous and eager hope, which I dared not trust myself to question, but which was intermixed with obscure forebodings of evil, that made my heart sicken in my bosom." last lines of chapter 2 on p169 The significance of this quotation lies in the way Shelley presents Victor as having mixed emotions towards his second attempt at making life. The use the adjective "tremulous" suggests that Victor's hope is something that he is forbidden to feel however, the juxtaposing adjective "eager" suggests that he is filled with hope with no reservations. Together they create a complex set of emotions which Shelley uses to highlight that Victor is interested in pursuing things that he knows it wrong. This suggests that Shelley thinks that having power over life and seeing the results of one's labour is an addictive combination that may lead scientists to make decisions that impact badly on the rest of the world. This is developed in the verb "dared" because Shelley presents Victor as scared of what he feels. The complexity of Victor's mind is built upon in the third phrase "intermixed with obscure forebodings of evil" which alludes to the moral and religious side of his personality because it links his work to sin through "evil". Finally, the last phrase foreshadows the events of the next chapter when he destroys the second creation, because the verb "sicken" tells us that out of his emotions repulsion is most prominent, ultimately meaning he cannot continue. It is likely that Shelley chose to tell the second creation chapters from Victor's perspective because her message is most applicable to scientists, so she chose to write about someone they could relate to. Victor's internal struggle is representative of how Shelley thought that other scientists would feel leading them to an outcome or a modal to follow (stopping creating life) from someone with a similar background to them would be easier to accept. In addition, if it was told from the monster's perspective Shelley would have lost the development of dominance that the creature acquires when fighting with Victor in the following chapter. Key contextual information: Shelley uses intertextuality in the first chapter in Volume three when she includes an extract from Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey on p161. Shelley may have used this extract because she knew William Wordsworth through her father William Godwin and had been previously inspired by his work, leading her to write 'Maurice' when she was just seventeen. However, it is more likely that the quotation - "Haunted him...from the eye." is used to to suggest a link between Frankenstein and Clerval in terms of the natural world using it as a technique to draw the reader back towards her view on the conflict between science and nature. At one time they Shelley presents both characters as having shared "An appetite, a feeling, and a love" for the natural world. Shelley shows this side of Victor as a youth in "the sight of what is beautiful in nature...could always interest my heart", however, as they have grown up Shelley presents them as valuing nature differently. Clerval is presented as valuing nature in it's current form displayed in the line "The scenery of external nature, which others regard only with admiration, he loved with ardour". Differently Frankenstein is presented as valuing nature for its solitude - "I passed whole days on the lack alone in a little boat, watching the clouds". Through his dedication and love of the environment Shelley presents Clerval as a personification of nature, thus foreshadowing the future demise of his character because the novel is based on the conflict between science and nature. This is revisited at his death when science, represented by the creature inhibits natural development, through Clerval's symbolic passing. Ultimately suggesting the results if scientists were to follow in Frankenstein's footsteps. Themes which are highlighted: Nature: "At these moments I took refuge in the most perfect solitude." p155 "He was alive to every new scene; joyful when he saw the beauties of the setting sun, and more happy when he beheld it rise and recommence a new day." p159 "I seemed to drink in a tranquility to which I had long been a stranger." p160 "But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul;" p165 Expectations/love: "You, perhaps, regard her as your sister, without any wish that she might become your wife." p156 "My future hopes and prospects are entirely bound up in the expectation of our union." p156 "Alas! to me the idea of an immediate union with my Elizabeth was one of horror and dismay." p157 Change in feeling towards new female monster - "But now I went to it in cold blood, and my heart often sickened at the work of my hands." p169